Many types of electronic devices must be protected from-high voltage surges. For example, cable television (CATV) amplifiers must withstand surges induced by nearby lightning strikes. Such devices can use crowbar devices such as gas discharge tubes and semiconductor devices which are intended to limit surge voltages and dissipate surge currents. Typical voltage surge protection methods often do not provide a fast enough voltage clamping action to prevent the damages of the protected device, and often cause non-linear affects which degrade the distortion performance of the device being protected. Moreover, protection devices typically have a relatively fast turn-on time once their threshold voltage is reached, thereby causing a very fast change in voltage (dv/dt). This in turn can induce several cycles of high voltage ringing within the pass band of the diplex filter, and the surge-induced ringing wave can propagate to the output of the device. Typical crowbar devices such as gas discharge tubes can generate potentially damaging ringing voltage cycles when they fire during a surge event. Asymmetric bi-directional characteristics can prevent effective protection against such ring waves.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide for a surge-ringing wave clamp circuit to protect devices from ring wave stresses. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.